I went back to a comfort re-read because I’m in the middle of edits and revisions and my whole world is pretty much a festooned garland of those colorful track changes bubbles (I even looked for them in a cookbook yesterday – a printed one – eel!). I love comfort re-reads, books I can sink into knowing how much I’ll enjoy them, and knowing that even the third, or fourth, or fifth time, they’ll work for me.
This weekend my comfort re-read is Instant Attraction by Jill Shalvis, and it still works. Oh, boy howdy, do I love this book. And as I read each chapter, I guess because I have revisions and structure on my mind, I started to notice how each chapter features an obstacle – most of the time a completely understandable, believable one – that prevents the hero and heroine from getting it on.
Sometimes it’s an external obstacle, like a new group of tourists (the hero’s family runs an adventure vacation company) that need to be taken out on a hike or a ski trip. Sometimes it’s an internal obstacle, like the hero, Cameron, feeling that he’s a terrible person if he takes advantage of Katie, the heroine, because they are both recovering from personal and psychological trauma. Sometimes it’s just timing or bad luck, but the kick is blocked more often than not as they head to the goal line.
I’m fascinated by this because one of the difficult elements of contemporary romance is that there aren’t often obstacles, really, to a modern heroine and hero having sex when they want to, even if it’s the wrong timing for the story’s tension. Nora Roberts has had many a heroine or hero hook up in horizontal way with nothing more than the explanation, “I wanted to.” Which makes sense – provided the sex makes things more complicated, which, in a romance, it always does. In romance novels, the old “Get it out of my system” trick NEVER works. You think characters would know that by now.
Also, many older contemporary romances I’ve read rely on class differences to block the hero or heroine – and while this theme continues to play out in secretary/boss romances (which give me the mighty squicks) I don’t read it as often today. Ditto the strange legal shenanigans where in someone is compelled to marry someone else in order to inherit something big and sparkly and worth a lot of money. Such wills don’t exist, to my knowledge. A will might be able to, in some places, compel someone to live on a property in order to inherit it, but a will cannot compel someone to marry someone else. (Lawyers and Recovering Lawyers in Romanceland, feel free to correct me if I’m talking out my ass on that one.)
There’s a lot of conflicts that don’t exist as much any more – but there are some that just work so well for me when the characters’ motivations support the conflict. Off the top of my head, here are some common contemporary obstacles I’ve encountered recently.
His job or her job: In Something About You by Julie James, and several other books where one party is a law enforcement officer or an attorney or in a position that’s bound by a very specific code of conduct, that code can create some tension because a character wants to do something but cannot even move an inch toward action. But that conflict will go away eventually – or one person will break the rules and face the consequences (with a smile because likely they had some hot happy sex).
Internal tension: “I’m not good enough for her,” “She’s out of my league,” “She matters so I must guard my tender, squishy insides – no, my OTHER tender squishy insides,” etc. I admit to being a total sucker for this type of conflict, particularly when it’s done right, and the character growth helps alleviate the feelings of unworthiness, but never the desire to demonstrate how much that character values the other.
Uh, Oh. Someone Was a Douchenugget: In the past, things went bad. Has that character changed enough to be trusted? I enjoy this plot, but sometimes the past crimes are not really bad enough to warrant holding a grudge for so long, while other times the things the hero did in the past are so heinous, when they’re finally revealed it can damage the reader’s perception of the hero or heroine. Toni Blake’s bad boy hero in Whisper Falls was a pretty good balance: he was once in a terribly violent biker gang, and not the friendly kind, either. He has crimes in his past that he still struggles with – but the fact that he struggles makes his character seem more real.
Family feud: their families hate each other – cue the Capulets for thumb-biting. This tension works but only up to a point because the hero and heroine look like they can’t stand up for themselves if they don’t eventually defend one another and their relationship to their families. It creates tension but sustained too long it can diminish the hero and heroine for not having a backbone enough to stand up for one another – and I have a hard time believing in a Happily Ever After if the characters don’t have one another’s backs in crucial moments.
I’m Not Who You Think I Am: She posed as a hotty mchot hot on Facebook, and now he’s going to find out that she’s just a regular woman with regular woman parts. Uh oh! While that’s not a plot I’d jump to read, the pretending-to-be-someone-else plot can be effective – so long as the pretender doesn’t so completely humiliate and confuse the other protagonist that both are diminished in the reader’s estimation. There has to be a pretty good reason for that mysterious mysteriousness, really, or else someone looks hurt, ridiculous, alarmist, or just plain nuts.
Someone Is Trying to Get Me/Us: Then the book becomes much like romantic suspense, and some antagonist must be defeated. This is not my favorite.
What contemporary romance conflicts do you love – and which do you try to avoid? Are there contemporary conflicts that really seem crazy to you, or are there some that ring so true you’re compelled to read from the cover copy alone?
And, most importantly, have you been compelled to marry someone due to a will and testament?
I can’t seem to stop.
Bookstorecat – I have this book!! I should so hate this book!! I LOVE this book!
My big problem with some
plots is some of things people are forgiving – I don’t believe it. It is why I finally stopped reading Susan Elizabeth Philips, despite how well-written they are, because there were some characters that I just couldn’t believe could forgive each other and move past the pain and betrayal and get together again. Maybe it is just me, but if you ruined my career or that of any family member of mine, accused me of cheating on gossamer-thin evidence, or lied to me over something significant, I don’t care how hot you are, there will never be a relationship based on trust.
I also don’t like stories where people have been married, are now divorced, and get together again.
But I am shamefully addicted to pregnancy plots at the moment.
As far as I’m concerned, all historical romances take place in Historical Romance Land, where women who are apparently financial geniuses can have trouble figuring out where babies come from, or plain orphan girls are often forced into sexless marriages with improbably handsome men with hearts of gold and nerves of steel who are never ever gay.
When it comes to contemporary romances, I’m far less forgiving. On the other hand, think of the wealth of material for the author. For example: Things are going swimmingly until the object of your desire finds out about your Google problem. Oh, dear! Can this romance be saved?
Donna said:
I know, RIGHT?
Cleo said:
If you like this, I recently started reading Megan Hart books and they would be a good fit. I was surprised by them actually. I was just looking for some entertaining smut, but they are much better than that.
A variant on the “I’m Not Who You Think I Am” is the “Perilous Secret Mission.” Used in some romance novels (and a lot of romantic comedy movies), this has one protagonist going undercover as part of an assignment (a reporter out for a story, a government agent looking for evidence, a private investigator trying to find the stolen funds), falling for the other protagonist, and fearing and eventually revealing the truth. This can sometimes stretch credibility (“Sure I was lying to you when I listened to your secrets, befriended your kid, and got you into bed—but now I’m telling the truth!”) but it’s also a contemporary obstacle that can be realistic.
Everyone is hating on the Big Misunderstanding, but I was particularly struck by this phrasing:
Because this is why Big Misunderstanding is so much fun! It’s like the whole don’t go down those stairs suspense moment. I’m on the edge of my seat, squirming, can-they-really-be-so dumb, omg, I know it’s going to work out but how?!
Just me? OK then.
I can handle any trope if it’s done well, don’t tend to do much contemporary because of the general lack of good conflict, plus I do like a hero to swoop in and fix everything but in a contemporary, this makes for a lame ass heroine and usually a creepy controlling hero.
Regarding legal issues: I always thought those crazy Romancelandia wills were not only not legally valid, but utterly implausible. I know rich people are different and all, but seriously, who does that? Yet when my boyfriend’s grandmother died, she left him money if he were married at the time of her death. He wasn’t. But apparently the lawyers also dislike that plot line, because he just got all the money. They didn’t seem to know what to do with it if it didn’t go to him – an important point to cover when making your standard controlling eccentric will.
Meanwhile, I find myself thinking, “If they can’t have a simple conversation that would clear the air and dispel all of their erroneous assumptions about each other, explain to me again why it’s a good thing they’re having sex??” Because, really, sex between two people that can’t have a single coherent conversation about their issues is just a recipe for disaster, not romance.
For me, the only time the Big Mis works is when it’s based on, “I don’t trust you, so I don’t believe you” and even then, there has to be a plausible reason why the facts can’t be verified at that very moment and it can’t last the entire freaking book. Susan Anderson had a fun one called, Baby, I’m Yours, where the hero, a bounty hunter, mistakes the heroine for her “bad”, car-thieving twin and tries to take her in for it. (There is an evil twin, a wily heroine determined to cause the hero as much trouble as possible, a road trip on a Greyhound bus, a none-too-bright hitman, and a Big Mis! The only thing missing from this story was the kitchen sink and it was a blast!) So I agree—a really good writer can make most tropes work and a bad one can screw up the best of ideas. That said, the Big Mis is, 99.9% of the time, such a clunker that it’s hard for me to not chuck the book across the room as soon as I see it chugging its way over the horizon. Generally speaking, I’ll take a dozen secret babies and idiotic wills before one of those.
Can I add a particular hate to the list? What about rich, handsome Duke marries ruined woman and lives happily ever after. Absolutely unbelievable plot. In spite of being 18th century London, “society” was a relatively small group of folks and with books listing the bloodlines of the titled pretending to be “Count Thus and So” or “unknown Lady from the Country” just isn’t believable as is the poor Beauty to sweeps rich Duke off his feet. Happened with the Gunning sisters but extremely uncommon. Servant to bride didn’t happen with a believable HEA and I find it hard to suspend my disbelief.
@Joy
No, because we’re talking about comtemporaries.
spamword: response22. Yes I think in the last 24 hours that’s about how many times I’ve responded.
Exactly, Tina. Or even in a relationship at all! I just have a hard time reading about a couple of mamby-pambies with their feelings all hurty. I just finished reading Karen Marie Moning’s Fever series. And seriously, with a simple “What you think happened didn’t really happen,” from the heroine, sparks could have flown so much sooner. But every time, the hero acts like a total asshat because of this “simple misunderstanding,” and I wanted to slap them both in the back of the collective head.
If not for interest in seeing how the other conflicts (fae wars and general mischief) resolved, I would have given up on the series much sooner. The romance aspect of the stories was completely awful. I must be a glutton for punishment.
I agree with what’s been said above. If the writing is good enough I can live with the horrible plot device, but some of them – like, yes, the Big Misunderstanding – tend not to work 97% of the time.
Dragoness Eclectic: Not very often. There’s only so many POC hero/heroines, so they do sometimes have culture conflicts that come with it, but its really not common. You’re more likely to find it in YA, actually. (Though the late 90s were really big on the Italian/Irish combination, with some culture conflict.)
Nikki S: Hell yeah. Especially number five (“We’re pregnant – that fixes everything – your psychosis my psychosis, we can be one big happy family.”) because that does NOT work. That family is not going to last and will more than likely do horrible damage to the kid in question. (And number six “Hmm – she is being stubborn/doesn’t want to be with me. Perhaps if I get her pregnant…” is known as reproductive coercion and is found in abusive relationships.)
Bwa ha ha ha ha. That was excellent Jayne.
Dragoness Eclectic: Meant to add I took your comment as one about race culture. There’s a lot of class culture clash (billionaire and waitress, cowboy and princess, etc). And some others.
@ orangehands – yes, but don’t forget about the Native Americans and the strangely high incidence (at least in Harlequinia) of Arabian Sheiks (quite a few of whom are mysteriously Christian). Otherwise, in decreasing order of frequency we have Italians, Hispanics, And East Asians – most of whom have little by way of cultural background in Romancelandia except large families and vague Catholicism in the first two cases and Chinese New Year and little grandmothers in the last. There are almost never African American heroes, unless the heroine is also African American – that is one racial boundary that Romancelandia rarely crosses.
I have read all of the comments I think, and I did not see this one, but forgive me if it was mentioned.
After it happened to me, it seemed every book had to use the “lost baby” Big Misunderstanding, probably as pregnancy plots are so prevalent….I am speaking of stories where – they had a child, he or she died, they could not communicate, so it ended but now for whatever reason, they are back in the same place and there’s gonna be closure, the kind that requires sex first, and then HEA. As time passes it bothers me less to read that particular situation and now I can even appreciate when it is dealt with well (altho I still get a little peeved with my “friends” who recommend those books, shouldn’t they know better?).
What I can’t stand is the “spontaneous abortion” misunderstanding, where she lost the baby as a miscarriage, but he thinks she did it on purpose. Just talk, people!
Not a comment.
Actually a prayer. Please God, let that guy on the cover be a real human who is contributing to our gene pool.
Virginia: Oh yes, he is. I’ve seen him in other covers and from candids from that modeling shoot. He is very real. 🙂
In trying to find out who the model was (curiosity) I was unable to find his name but did find a pic of him smiling, with the late great Kate Duffy, on Jill Shalvis’ blog.
Also, weirdly enough, I did turn up that the cover model for Jaci Burton’s The Perfect Play is Jed Hill. Now how putting in “Jill Shalvis” “Instant Attraction” “cover model” to Google brings up the answer for a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT book happens, I dunno.
Duh, I really though I posted the link to picture mentioned in the first paragraph, but I did not. Dingbat moment, folks!
http://jillshalvis.com/blog/2009/09/29/saying-goodbye/
He can grace my cover anytime he wants. . .
@Jayne – Awesome! I very nearly spat my drink all over the computer.
My favourite plotline in contemporary romance is when the heroine falls in love with her best friends’ brother. Or when the hero falls in love with his best friends sister. I’m fairly sure this is different from the feuding families plotline because no-one bites their thumbs at anyone else.
Another least favorite obstacle is the Must Resist Matchmaking conflict. Somebody’s father/grandmother/eccentric aunt creates a crazy situation that throws our H/h together (because setting them up on a date like normal people would be boring, I guess). After the H/h realize they’ve been set up, they’re all, “I can’t let myself love you because I won’t be manipulated / won’t do what my father wants me to do.” The worst are matchmaking ghosts / angels, although I guess that gets into paranormal, not contemporary, romance.
I haven’t read Instant Attraction, but I definitely will after this review! I also love your comment about how characters really should have learned by now that sex leads to complication! I guess the characters aren’t reading too many romance novels…
Love: “I don’t have time for this! Come back in x amount of time when I’ve gotten my shit together!”
Hate: Matchmakers